Thursday, November 30, 2017

Mark your calendars and join us on Thursday, December 7 at
7pm for a live reading of Charles Dickens’ beloved story, “A Christmas Carol.” Your favorite neighborhood librarians, shop
owners, and friends will appear as characters in the story. The reading should last approximately one
hour and live music will accompany.
Admission is free and cider, hot chocolate, and cookies will be
available!

This week, the Genre Reading Group met to discussion spy/espionage
novels!

Cayce Pollard is a new kind of prophet—a world-renowned
“coolhunter” who predicts the hottest trends. While in London to evaluate the
redesign of a famous corporate logo, she’s offered a different assignment: find
the creator of the obscure, enigmatic video clips being uploaded to the
internet—footage that is generating massive underground buzz worldwide.

Still haunted by the memory of her missing father—a Cold War security guru who
disappeared in downtown Manhattan on the morning of September 11, 2001—Cayce is
soon traveling through parallel universes of marketing, globalization, and
terror, heading always for the still point where the three converge. From
London to Tokyo to Moscow, she follows the implications of a secret as
disturbing—and compelling—as the twenty-first century promises to be...

In 1942, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse—mathematical genius
and young Captain in the U.S. Navy—is assigned to detachment 2702. It is an
outfit so secret that only a handful of people know it exists, and some of
those people have names like Churchill and Roosevelt. The mission of Waterhouse
and Detachment 2702—commanded by Marine Raider Bobby Shaftoe-is to keep the
Nazis ignorant of the fact that Allied Intelligence has cracked the enemy's
fabled Enigma code. It is a game, a cryptographic chess match between Waterhouse
and his German counterpart, translated into action by the gung-ho Shaftoe and
his forces.

Fast-forward to the present, where Waterhouse's
crypto-hacker grandson, Randy, is attempting to create a "data haven"
in Southeast Asia—a place where encrypted data can be stored and exchanged free
of repression and scrutiny. As governments and multinationals attack the
endeavor, Randy joins forces with Shaftoe's tough-as-nails granddaughter, Amy,
to secretly salvage a sunken Nazi submarine that holds the key to keeping the
dream of a data haven afloat. But soon their scheme brings to light a massive
conspiracy with its roots in Detachment 2702 linked to an unbreakable Nazi code
called Arethusa. And it will represent the path to unimaginable riches and a future
of personal and digital liberty...or to universal totalitarianism reborn.

A breathtaking tour de force, and Neal Stephenson's most
accomplished and affecting work to date, Cryptonomicon is profound
and prophetic, hypnotic and hyper-driven, as it leaps forward and back between
World War II and the World Wide Web, hinting all the while at a dark
day-after-tomorrow. It is a work of great art, thought and creative daring; the
product of a truly iconoclastic imagination working with white-hot intensity.

Six years ago in Vienna, terrorists took over a hundred
hostages, and the rescue attempt went terribly wrong. The CIA's Vienna station
gathered intel during those tense hours, assimilating facts from the ground and
from an agent on the inside. So when it all went wrong, the question had to be
asked: Had their agent been compromised, and how?

Two of the CIA's case officers in Vienna, Henry Pelham and
Celia Harrison, were lovers at the time, and on the night of the hostage crisis
Celia decided she'd had enough. She left the agency, married and had children,
and now lives in idyllic Carmel-by-the-Sea. Henry is still a case officer in
Vienna, and has traveled to California to see her one more time, to relive the
past, maybe, or to put it behind him once and for all.

But neither of them can forget that long-ago question: Had their agent been
compromised? If so, how? Each also wonders what role tonight's dinner companion
might have played in the way the tragedy unfolded six years ago.

The James Bond Series by Ian Fleming

The James Bond literary franchise is a series
of novels and short stories, first published in 1953 by Ian Fleming, a
British author, journalist, and former naval intelligence
officer. James Bond, often referred to by his code name, 007, is a
British Secret Service agent; the character was created by journalist
and author Ian Fleming, and first appeared in his 1953 novel Casino
Royale; the books are set in a contemporary period, between May 1951 and
February 1964. Fleming went on to write a total of twelve novels and two
collections of short stories, all written at his Jamaican home Goldeneye and
published annually. Two of his books were published after his death in 1964.

The winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, as well
as six other awards, The Sympathizer is the breakthrough novel of the
year. With the pace and suspense of a thriller and prose that has been compared
to Graham Greene and Saul Bellow, The Sympathizer is a sweeping epic
of love and betrayal. The narrator, a communist double agent, is a “man of two
minds,” a half-French, half-Vietnamese army captain who arranges to come to
America after the Fall of Saigon, and while building a new life with other
Vietnamese refugees in Los Angeles is secretly reporting back to his communist
superiors in Vietnam. The Sympathizer is a blistering exploration of
identity and America, a gripping espionage novel, and a powerful story of love
and friendship.

Charlie McKenzie was the best in the business of CIA dirty
work -- until he was double-crossed by his bosses and jailed to cover up a
mammoth intelligence blunder. Now they want him back. And Charlie wants to get
even.

A Russian spy has stumbled upon the most important U.S.
military breakthrough since the atomic bomb -- a top-secret technology called
Whirlwind -- and only the disgraced former operative has the skills necessary
to retrieve it. But Charlie already knows too much. And once Whirlwind is back
in Company hands, his enemies intend to betray him again -- and put him out of
the game permanently.

However, Charlie McKenzie has other plans. And he won't be
that easy to kill.

Mata Hari: the name breathes mystery, intrigue and sexual
allure. Who better to play the notorious World War I spy than Greta Garbo, the
enigmatic, exquisite screen icon called The Swedish Sphinx? Garbo is
mesmerizing as the dancer-turned-German secret agent in a wartime Paris
seething with secrets and betrayal. The notable supporting cast includes Lionel
Barrymore as a Russian general besotted with her, Lewis Stone as an icy master
spy, and Ramon Novarro as a handsome aviator who wins the heart Mata Hari did
not know she possessed. With the world at war, love was her weapon. And the
only men she couldn't seduce were the 12 in the firing squad that ended her
tragic and tumultuous life.

Edgar Allan Poe: Buried Alive draws on the rich palette of
Poe's evocative imagery and sharply drawn plots to tell the real story of the
notorious author. Featuring Tony Award-winning actor Denis O'Hare, the film
explores the misrepresentations of Poe as an alcoholic madman. It reveals the
way in which Poe tapped into what it means to be a human in our modern and
sometimes frightening world.

MI6’s man in Havana is Wormold, a former vacuum-cleaner
salesman turned reluctant secret agent out of economic necessity. To keep his
job, he files bogus reports based on Charles Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare and
dreams up military installations from vacuum-cleaner designs. Then his stories
start coming disturbingly true…

First published in 1959 against the backdrop of the Cold War, Our Man in Havana
remains one of Graham Greene’s most widely read novels. It is an espionage
thriller, a penetrating character study, and a political satire of government
intelligence that still resonates today.

September 1939. As Warsaw falls to Hitler’s Wehrmacht,
Captain Alexander de Milja is recruited by the intelligence service of the
Polish underground. His mission: to transport the national gold reserve to
safety, hidden on a refugee train to Bucharest. Then, in the back alleys and
black-market bistros of Paris, in the tenements of Warsaw, with partizan
guerrillas in the frozen forests of the Ukraine, and at Calais Harbor during an
attack by British bombers, de Milja fights in the war of the shadows in a world
without rules, a world of danger, treachery, and betrayal.

Peter Guillam, staunch colleague and disciple of George
Smiley of the British Secret Service, otherwise known as the Circus, is living
out his old age on the family farmstead on the south coast of Brittany when a
letter from his old Service summons him to London. The reason? His Cold War
past has come back to claim him. Intelligence operations that were once the
toast of secret London, and involved such characters as Alec Leamas, Jim
Prideaux, George Smiley and Peter Guillam himself, are to be scrutinized by a
generation with no memory of the Cold War and no patience with its
justifications.

Interweaving past with present so that each may tell its own intense story, John
le Carré has spun a single plot as ingenious and thrilling as the two
predecessors on which it looks back: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker
Tailor Soldier Spy. In a story resonating with tension, humor and moral
ambivalence, le Carré and his narrator Peter Guillam present the reader with a
legacy of unforgettable characters old and new.

In the shadow of the newly erected Berlin Wall, Alec Leamas
watches as his last agent is shot dead by East German sentries. For Leamas, the
head of Berlin Station, the Cold War is over. As he faces the prospect of
retirement or worse—a desk job—Control offers him a unique opportunity for
revenge. Assuming the guise of an embittered and dissolute ex-agent, Leamas is
set up to trap Mundt, the deputy director of the East German Intelligence
Service—with himself as the bait. In the background is George Smiley, ready to
make the game play out just as Control wants. Setting a standard that has never been surpassed, The Spy Who Came in from
the Cold is a devastating tale of duplicity and espionage.

The Gabriel Allon series by Daniel Silva

Gabriel Allon is a master art restorer and sometime officer
of Israeli intelligence.

Wednesday, November 1, 2017

In a work that beautifully demonstrates the rewards of
closely observing nature, Elisabeth Tova Bailey shares an inspiring and
intimate story of her encounter with a Neohelix albolabris-a common woodland
snail. While an illness keeps her bedridden, Bailey watches a wild snail that
has taken up residence on her nightstand. As a result, she discovers the solace
and sense of wonder that this mysterious creature brings and comes to a greater
understanding of her own place in the world. Intrigued by the snail's molluscan
anatomy, cryptic defenses, clear decision making, hydraulic locomotion, and
courtship activities, Bailey becomes an astute and amused observer, offering a
candid and engaging look into the curious life of this underappreciated small
animal. The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating is a remarkable journey of survival and
resilience, showing us how a small part of the natural world can illuminate our
own human existence, while providing an appreciation of what it means to be
fully alive. (amazon.com)

The extraordinary New York Times bestselling
account of James Garfield's rise from poverty to the American presidency, and
the dramatic history of his assassination and legacy, from bestselling author
of The River of Doubt, Candice Millard.

James Abram Garfield was one of the most extraordinary men ever elected
president. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a
Civil War hero, a renowned congressman, and a reluctant presidential candidate
who took on the nation's corrupt political establishment. But four months after
Garfield's inauguration in 1881, he was shot in the back by a deranged
office-seeker named Charles Guiteau. Garfield survived the attack, but become
the object of bitter, behind-the-scenes struggles for power—over his
administration, over the nation's future, and, hauntingly, over his medical
care. Meticulously researched, epic in scope, and pulsating with an intimate
human focus and high-velocity narrative drive, The Destiny of the
Republic brings alive a forgotten chapter of U.S. history. (amazon.com)

Fragments is an event―an unforgettable book that will
redefine one of the greatest icons of the twentieth century and that, nearly
fifty years after her death, will definitively reveal Marilyn Monroe's
humanity.

Marilyn's image is so universal that we can't help but
believe we know all there is to know of her. Every word and gesture made
headlines and garnered controversy. Her serious gifts as an actor were
sometimes eclipsed by her notoriety―and by the way the camera fell helplessly
in love with her.

Beyond the headlines―and the too-familiar stories of
heartbreak and desolation―was a woman far more curious, searching, witty, and
hopeful than the one the world got to know. Now, for the first time, readers
can meet the private Marilyn and understand her in a way we never have
before. Fragments is an unprecedented collection of written
artifacts―notes to herself, letters, even poems―in Marilyn's own handwriting,
never before published, along with rarely seen intimate photos.

Jotted in notebooks, typed on paper, or written on hotel
letterhead, these texts reveal a woman who loved deeply and strove to perfect
her craft. They show a Marilyn Monroe unsparing in her analysis of her own
life, but also playful, funny, and impossibly charming. The easy grace and
deceptive lightness that made her performances indelible emerge on the page, as
does the simmering tragedy that made her last appearances so affecting.
(amazon.com)

Equal parts showman and artist, hustler and faithful
son, trained tenor and fast-talking raconteur, Sam Tenenbaum is—to
paraphrase Whitman—large, he contains multitudes. In this inspirational
and quintessentially American “song of himself,” we see Sam pick himself
up by the bootstraps of an awkward childhood in mid-20th Century
Birmingham, Alabama, and forge an unlikely path through the
roughriding, anything-goes early days of professional wrestling in
the American South—all while nurturing his faith and pursuing, on the sly,
his rst true love: operatic singing. In the end, we learn what Sam
learned early on: how to live large, fear nothing, and never give up
on your dreams. (amazon.com)

In 1978, the first group of space shuttle astronauts was
introduced to the world -- twenty-nine men and six women who would carry NASA
through the most tumultuous years of the space shuttle program. Among them was
USAF Colonel Mike Mullane, who, in his memoir Riding Rockets, strips
the heroic veneer from the astronaut corps and paints them as they are --
human.

Mullane's tales of arrested development among military flyboys working with
feminist pioneers and post-doc scientists are sometimes bawdy, often comical,
and always entertaining. He vividly portrays every aspect of the astronaut
experience, from telling a female technician which urine-collection condom size
is a fit to hearing "Taps" played over a friend's grave. He is also
brutally honest in his criticism of a NASA leadership whose bungling would
precipitate the Challenger disaster -- killing four members of his group. A
hilarious, heartfelt story of life in all its fateful uncertainty, Riding
Rockets will resonate long after the call of "Wheel stop."
(amazon.com)

Welcome to Bryson City, a small town tucked away in a fold
of North Carolina’s Smoky Mountains. The scenery is breathtaking, the home cooking
can’t be beat, the Maroon Devils football team is the pride of the town, and
you won’t find better steelhead fishing anywhere. But the best part is the
people you’re about to meet in the pages of Bryson City Seasons. In this joyous
sequel to his bestselling Bryson City Tales, Dr. Walt Larimore whisks you along
on a journey through the seasons of a Bryson City year. On the way, you’ll
encounter crusty mountain men, warmhearted townspeople, peppery medical
personalities, and the hallmarks of a simpler, more wholesome way of life.
Culled from the author’s experiences as a young doctor settling into rural
medical practice, these captivating stories are a celebration of this richly
textured miracle called life. (amazon.com)

(Patron review) I have enjoyed reading Stephen King over the
decades, his books and novellas. This memoir was no exception as he
shares his early life growing up in Maine with his older brother and his single
mother (his father having long left the scene).

One of the kicks I got from reading his book was his
description of his brother Dave.

"Dave was a great brother, but
too smart of a ten-year-old. His brains were always getting him in
trouble and he learned at some point .... That it was usually possible to get
Brother Stevie to join him in some point position when trouble was in the
wind."

Several passages later:

"We each had our part to play
in creating the Super Duper Electromagnet. Dave's part was to build
it. My part would be to test it. Little Stevie King,
Stratford's answer to Chuck Yeager.
Dave's new version of the experiment by-passed the pokey old
dry cell... in favor of actual wall current. Dave cut the electrical cord
off an old lamp someone had put on the curb with the trash, stripped the
coating all the way down to the plug, then wrapped his magnetized spike in
spirals of bare wire. Then, sitting on the floor in the kitchen of
our West Board Street apartment, he offered me the Super Duper Electromagnet and
bade me to my part and plug it in.
I hesitated – give me at least that much credit – but in the
end, Dave's manic enthusiasm was too much to withstand. I plugged it
in. There was no noticeable magnetism, but the
gadget did blow out light and electrical appliance in the building
and in the building next door (where my dream-girl lived in the ground-floor
apartment). Something popped in the electrical transformer out front
and some cops came. Dave and I spent a horrible hour watching from
out mother's bedroom window, that only one that looked out on the street.....
When the cops left, a power truck arrived. Under other
circumstances, this would have absorbed us completely, but not that
day. That day we could only wonder if our mother would come and see
us in reform school. Eventually, the lights came back on the power
truck went away. We were not caught and lived to fight another
day. Dave decided he might build a Super Duper Glider instead of a
Super Duper Electromagnet for his science project. I, he told me, would
get to take the first ride. Wouldn't that be great?"

I've included Stephen King's own words because one of long
short stories from Nightmares and Dreamscapes, The End of the Whole
Mess, (page 67) channels this childhood memory. The story
was both frightening and endearing when I first read it. The tale
caught the terrible sweetness of familial ties and consequences. I
hope this piques your curiosity to check it out. There are several
other well told stories in the particular book.

King's book touches on the craft of writing - very
simply and very plainly. In essence, he outlines the toolbox of a
writer. He brings up the fundamental need to read – a lot if you
wish to become a writer.

"But TV came relatively late to
the King household and I'm glad. I am, when you stop to think of it,
a member of a fairly select group: the final handful of American novelists who
learned to read and write before they learned to eat a daily helping of video
bull---x. This might not be important. On the other
hand, if you're just starting out as a writer, you could do worse than strip
your television's electric plug wire, wrap a spike around it and then stick it
back into the wall. See what blows and how
far. Just an idea"

"Common tools go on top. The commonest of
all, the bread of writing, is vocabulary. In this case, you can
happily pack what you have without the slightest bit of guild and inferiority.
" Stephen King then provides case studies on the use of
vocabulary.

Next, he brings up grammar and bows out for "the
same reason that William Strunk decided not to recap the basics when he wrote
the first edition of The Elements of Style, if you don't know, it's
too late."

King continues later, "I am approaching the heart of
this book with two theses, both simple. The first is that good
writing consists of mastering the fundamentals (vocabulary, grammar, the
elements of style) and then filling the third level of your toolbox with the
right instruments." In succeeding chapters, he expands on
narration, description, dialogue and plot.

At the very end of the book, he shares a list of books he
has read over the last three to four years that he suspects has had an
influence over the books he wrote. The list also helps answer the
perennial question from his "Constant Readers" on "what
do you read?" In short, King is encouraging, down to earth and pragmatic
as he weaves examples from his own life in a sincere effort to encourage
writers in this memoir.

Patricia Volk’s delicious memoir lets us into her big,
crazy, loving, cheerful, infuriating and wonderful family, where you’re never
just hungry–your starving to death, and you’re never just full–you’re stuffed.
Volk’s family fed New York City for one hundred years, from 1888 when her
great-grandfather introduced pastrami to America until 1988, when her father
closed his garment center restaurant. All along, food was pretty much at the
center of their lives. But as seductively as Volk evokes the food, Stuffed is
at heart a paean to her quirky, vibrant relatives: her grandmother with the
“best legs in Atlantic City”; her grandfather, who invented the wrecking ball;
her larger-than-life father, who sculpted snow thrones when other dads were struggling
with snowmen. Writing with great freshness and humor, Patricia Volk will leave
you hungering to sit down to dinner with her robust family–both for the
spectacle and for the food.

A stunning, personal memoir from the astronaut and
modern-day hero who spent a record-breaking year aboard the International Space
Station—a message of hope for the future that will inspire for generations to
come.

The veteran of four spaceflights and the American record holder for consecutive
days spent in space, Scott Kelly has experienced things very few have. Now, he
takes us inside a sphere utterly hostile to human life. He describes navigating
the extreme challenge of long-term spaceflight, both life-threatening and
mundane: the devastating effects on the body; the isolation from everyone he
loves and the comforts of Earth; the catastrophic risks of colliding with space
junk; and the still more haunting threat of being unable to help should tragedy
strike at home--an agonizing situation Kelly faced when, on a previous mission,
his twin brother's wife, American Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, was shot
while he still had two months in space.

Kelly's humanity, compassion, humor, and determination
resonate throughout, as he recalls his rough-and-tumble New Jersey childhood
and the youthful inspiration that sparked his astounding career, and as he
makes clear his belief that Mars will be the next, ultimately challenging, step
in spaceflight. In Endurance, we see the triumph of the human
imagination, the strength of the human will, and the infinite wonder of the
galaxy.

Space is a world devoid of the things we need to live and
thrive: air, gravity, hot showers, fresh produce, privacy, beer. Space
exploration is in some ways an exploration of what it means to be human. How
much can a person give up? How much weirdness can they take? What happens to
you when you can’t walk for a year? have sex? smell flowers? What happens if
you vomit in your helmet during a space walk? Is it possible for the human body
to survive a bailout at 17,000 miles per hour? To answer these questions, space
agencies set up all manner of quizzical and startlingly bizarre space
simulations. As Mary Roach discovers, it’s possible to preview space without
ever leaving Earth. From the space shuttle training toilet to a crash test of
NASA’s new space capsule (cadaver filling in for astronaut), Roach takes us on
a surreally entertaining trip into the science of life in space and space on
Earth.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to find yourself
strapped to a giant rocket that’s about to go from zero to 17,500 miles per
hour? Or to look back on Earth from outer space and see the surprisingly precise line
between day and night? Or to stand in front of the Hubble Space Telescope,
wondering if the emergency repair you’re about to make will inadvertently ruin
humankind’s chance to unlock the universe’s secrets? Mike Massimino has been
there, and in Spaceman he puts you inside the suit, with all the zip
and buoyancy of life in microgravity.

Massimino’s childhood space dreams were born the day Neil Armstrong set foot on
the moon. Growing up in a working-class Long Island family, he catapulted
himself to Columbia and then MIT, only to flunk his first doctoral exam and be
rejected three times by NASA before making it through the final round of
astronaut selection.

Taking us through the surreal wonder and beauty of his first spacewalk, the
tragedy of losing friends in the Columbia shuttle accident, and the
development of his enduring love for the Hubble Telescope—which he and his
fellow astronauts were tasked with saving on his final mission—Massimino has
written an ode to never giving up and the power of teamwork to make anything
possible. Spaceman invites us into a rare, wonderful world where science meets the
most thrilling adventure, revealing just what having “the right stuff” really
means.

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Sunday 10/1, 2pm – An Afternoon with the Author
Drop by this afternoon and meet Amy McDonald, local teacher and author of Determined
to Survive, a memoir that details the experiences of Holocaust survivor Max
Steinmetz. Mr. Steinmetz is a
Romanian-born Auschwitz survivor who relocated to Alabama in 1955.

Thursday 10/5, 10am – A Morning with the Author
Drop by this morning for a fun, casual coloring event with author and
illustrator Laura Murray. Laura’s
coloring book, Amazing Alabama: A Coloring Book Journey Through Our 67 Counties
will be published soon by NewSouth Books.

Friday 10/6, 6-9pm – Western Wine & Food Festival at the
Birmingham Zoo, tickets available online, at the library, and at Western
Supermarkets locations

Published in 1983, this book discusses the importance of
family photographs as a means of understanding the passage of time,
establishing ties with ancestors, and varying ways of recording important
events in family life. Includes suggestions for collecting photographs and
putting together an album. Obviously, some information is outdated but the
ideas behind it are solid!

Published on the one hundredth anniversary of the death of
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), Reflections in a Looking Glass
presents Carroll's remarkable photography. Richly illustrated, this important
book presents seldom-seen works-most of them formal portraits and staged scenes
that combine Carroll's famous childlike sense of play with the Victorian
propriety that characterized his age.

Also included in Reflections are selected drawings by Lewis Carroll and by John
Tenniel, who illustrated the original Alice books. The central text by Morton
N. Cohen, the world's leading authority on Lewis Carroll, provides an in-depth
account of Carroll's experimentation in the new medium of photography. His
hobby opened the door to many of his "child friends" as well as to
leading artistic and literary figures of the day, all of whom came to Carroll's
studio to sit for their portraits.

Excerpts from Carroll's diaries combine with Cohen's annotated captions to make
this book an invaluable resource. The book also includes a Preface by Mark
Haworth-Booth, curator of photographs at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The
Afterword is by Roy Flukinger, curator of photographs at the Harry Ransom
Center, University of Texas, Austin, the source collection for much of the
material in this extraordinary book.

Part love story, part literary mystery, Melanie Benjamin’s
spellbinding historical novel leads readers on an unforgettable journey down
the rabbit hole, to tell the story of a woman whose own life became the stuff
of legend. Her name is Alice Liddell Hargreaves, but to the world she’ll always
be known simply as “Alice,” the girl who followed the White Rabbit into a
wonderland of Mad Hatters, Queens of Hearts, and Cheshire Cats. Now, nearing
her eighty-first birthday, she looks back on a life of intense passion, great
privilege, and greater tragedy. First as a young woman, then as a wife, mother,
and widow, she’ll experience adventures the likes of which not even her
fictional counterpart could have imagined. Yet from glittering balls and royal
romances to a world plunged into war, she’ll always be the same determined,
undaunted Alice who, at ten years old, urged a shy, stuttering Oxford professor
to write down one of his fanciful stories, thus changing her life forever.

During the 1830s, in an atmosphere of intense scientific
inquiry fostered by the industrial revolution, two quite different men―one in
France, one in England―developed their own dramatically different photographic
processes in total ignorance of each other's work. These two lone
geniuses―Henry Fox Talbot in the seclusion of his English country estate at
Lacock Abbey and Louis Daguerre in the heart of post-revolutionary
Paris―through diligence, disappointment and sheer hard work overcame
extraordinary odds to achieve the one thing man had for centuries been trying
to do―to solve the ancient puzzle of how to capture the light and in so doing
make nature 'paint its own portrait'. With the creation of their two radically
different processes―the Daguerreotype and the Talbotype―these two giants of
early photography changed the world and how we see it.

Drawing on a wide range of original, contemporary sources and featuring plates
in colour, sepia and black and white, many of them rare or previously
unseen, Capturing the Light by Roger Watson and Helen Rappaport
charts an extraordinary tale of genius, rivalry and human resourcefulness in
the quest to produce the world's first photograph.

The celebrated photographer Annie Leibovitz, author of the
New York Times bestselling book A Photographer's Life, provides the stories,
and technical description, of how some of her most famous images came to be.
Starting in 1974, with her coverage of Nixon's resignation, and culminating
with her controversial portraits of Queen Elizabeth II early in 2007, Leibovitz
explains what professional photographers do and how they do it. The
photographer in this instance is the most highly paid and prolific person in
the business. Approximately 90 images are discussed in detail -- the
circumstances under which they were taken, with specific technical information
(what camera, what settings, what lighting, where the images appeared). The
Rolling Stones' tour in 1975, the famous nude session with John Lennon and Yoko
Ono hours before Lennon was killed, the American Express and Gap campaigns,
Whoopi Goldberg in a bathtub of milk, Demi Moore pregnant and naked on the cover
of Vanity Fair, and coverage of the couture collections in Paris with Puff
Daddy and Kate Moss are among the subjects of this original and informative
work. The photos and stories are arranged chronologically, moving from film to
digital. Leibovitz's fans and lovers of great photography will find her stories
of how one learns to see -- and then how to photograph -- inspiring.

Group f.64 is perhaps the most famous movement in the
history of photography, counting among its members Ansel Adams, Imogen
Cunningham, Dorothea Lange, Willard Van Dyke, and Edward Weston. Revolutionary
in their day, Group f.64 was one of the first modern art movements equally
defined by women. From the San Francisco Bay Area, its influence extended
internationally, contributing significantly to the recognition of photography
as a fine art.

The group-first identified as such in a 1932 exhibition-was
comprised of strongly individualist artists, brought together by a common
philosophy, and held together in a tangle of dynamic relationships. They shared
a conviction that photography must emphasize its unique capabilities-those that
distinguished it from other arts-in order to establish the medium's identity.
Their name, f.64, they took from a very small lens aperture used with
their large format cameras, a pinprick that allowed them to capture the
greatest possible depth of field in their lustrous, sharply detailed prints. In
today's digital world, these “straight” photography champions are increasingly
revered.

Mary Alinder is uniquely positioned to write this first
group biography. A former assistant to Ansel Adams, she knew most of the
artists featured. Just as importantly, she understands the art. Featuring fifty
photographs by and of its members, Group f.64 details a transformative
period in art with narrative flair.

Memorable quotes, funny stories, serious tributes, and
revealing comments from people as diverse as Bruce Springsteen, Imelda Marcos,
and Richard Nixon combine with photographs presented in chronological order of
Elvis's life.

GENERAL DISCUSSION:

Bellocq’s Ophelia: Poems by Natasha Trethewey (not available in JCLC)
In the early 1900s, E.J. Bellocq photographed prostitutes in the red-light district of New Orleans. His remarkable, candid photos inspired Natasha
Trethewey to imagine the life of Ophelia, the subject of Bellocq's Ophelia,
her stunning second collection of poems. With elegant precision, Ophelia tells
of her life on display: her white father whose approval she earns by standing
very still; the brothel Madame who tells her to act like a statue while the
gentlemen callers choose; and finally the camera, which not only captures her
body, but also offers a glimpse into her soul.

We are a brand new independent, reader-supported, quarterly
journal of fine art photography and poetry on our way to our very first year of
publication. We are proud to announce that our Inaugural issue, and all
of our future issues will be available in both print and online editions.

A wonderful menagerie of animal portraits by celebrated
photographer Rachael Hale. Puppies and tigers and pigs...oh my! Get ready for
more oohs and aahs. It's a Zoo Out There is the next adorable installment of
Rachael Hale's bestselling book series. This collection of Hale's finest
photographs of enchanting and magnificent creatures both large and small,
domestic and exotic, is beautifully presented in this over-sized volume. Hale's
special rapport with animals has allowed her to capture the true essence of her
subjects.

A baby's first year is filled with an endless stream of new
experiences, contributing profoundly to their physical, mental, and emotional
development. Typically at the age of one-year an infant has the motor skills
and ability to sit on their own for the first time and their uninhibited gaze
provides a window into a distinct personality that will endure throughout their
lifetime. It is these individual natures that photographer Edward Mapplethorpe
expertly captures.

The culmination of a twenty-year project by one of today's top-commissioned and
internationally-recognized photographers of baby portraits, ONE features
a series of 60 photographs that catch the fleeting, yet universal, moment of
life when a child reaches one year of age. There is something remarkable in the
innocent faces of the children portrayed in this book that serves to underscore
our common humanity.

The luxuriously printed duo-tone photographs in ONE are accompanied by
essays from esteemed contemporary authors Adam Gopnik, Susan Orlean, Francine
Prose, and Andrew Solomon. Patti Smith contributes an original poem while Dr.
Samantha Boardman writes the introduction. Contributions from such diverse
luminaries emphasize the widespread appeal such innocent, unguarded beauty has
for so many people.

Published to accompany a major travelling exhibition, this
book presents a collection of eerily anthropomorphic photographs by William Wegman.
They feature clothes by Helmut Lang, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Alexander McQueen,
Issey Miyake and others being modeled by dogs.

Top blogger and pro photographer Lara Ferroni serves up a
one-stop guide to food-photography success! Packed with her tried-and-true
secrets, this comprehensive guide details everything you need to know about
sourcing and styling food, drinks, and props. Ferroni profiles several of the
industry's top professional food photographers, and includes detailed case
studies of their most successful shots--complete with lighting diagrams and
equipment setups. This diverse collection of stunning images images and
easy-to-follow shooting instructions perfectly encompasses the field of modern
food photography, covering everything from blog and editorial photography to
corporate advertising and publicity shots.

Presented here are signature images by twenty of this
century's greatest photographers, interviews with the author, and his portrait
of each photographer. The result combines the photographers' visions with their
words, broadening understanding of their personalities and work and providing
an international portrait of the twentieth century.

Get out! Run! We must leave this place! They are going to
destroy this whole place! Go, children, run first! Go now!These were the final shouts nine year-old Kim Phuc heard before her world
dissolved into flames―before napalm bombs fell from the sky, burning away her
clothing and searing deep into her skin. It’s a moment forever captured, an
iconic image that has come to define the horror and violence of the Vietnam War.
Kim was left for dead in a morgue; no one expected her to survive the attack.
Napalm meant fire, and fire meant death.

Against all odds, Kim lived―but her journey toward healing was only beginning.
When the napalm bombs dropped, everything Kim knew and relied on exploded along
with them: her home, her country’s freedom, her childhood innocence and
happiness. The coming years would be marked by excruciating treatments for her
burns and unrelenting physical pain throughout her body, which were constant reminders
of that terrible day. Kim survived the pain of her body ablaze, but how could
she possibly survive the pain of her devastated soul?

Fire Road is the true story of how she found the answer in a God who
suffered Himself; a Savior who truly understood and cared about the depths of
her pain. Fire Road is a story of horror and hope, a harrowing tale
of a life changed in an instant―and the power and resilience that can only be
found in the power of God’s mercy and love.

Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Here at EOL, we’re excited about all the great programs
coming up this month! Before we get
started with that, just a reminder that the library will be closed in
observance of Labor Day Saturday, Sunday, and Monday September 2-4th. Additionally, the library will not begin
Winter Hours until Sunday, September 10th.
We’ll be open 1pm-5pm that day and hours will be as follows: Mon, Tue,
and Thu: 9am-9pm, Wed: 9am-6pm, Fri-Sat: 9am-5pm, and Sun 1pm-5pm.

The UAB
Neuroscience Café returns on Thu, Sep 14th at 6:30pm with an update on
Parkinson’s Disease research. On Tue, Sep 19th, you won’t want to miss Documentaries
After Dark. We’ll be screening the
conservation/green burial movement documentary, A Will for the Woods, with a
Skype Q & A session with one of the filmmakers! The Community Conversation on Aging series
returns Tue, Sep 26th at 10am with a discussion of wills, trusts, and banking
in relation to aging.

The next Genre Reading Group meeting will be on Tue, Sep 26th
at 6:30pm and the topic up for discussion is photography. There is a selection of books on display at
the second floor reference desk but you are always welcome to make your own
selection!

Arcadia takes us back and forth between the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries, ranging over the nature of truth and time, the
difference between the Classical and the Romantic temperament, and the
disruptive influence of sex on our orbits in life. Focusing on the
mysteries―romantic, scientific, literary―that engage the minds and hearts of
characters whose passions and lives intersect across scientific planes and
centuries, it is "Stoppard's richest, most ravishing comedy to date, a
play of wit, intellect, language, brio and . . . emotion. It's like a dream of
levitation: you're instantaneously aloft, soaring, banking, doing
loop-the-loops and then, when you think you're about to plummet to earth,
swooping to a gentle touchdown of not easily described sweetness and sorrow . .
. Exhilarating" (Vincent Canby, The New York Times).

In Vichy France in 1942, eight men and a boy are seized by
the collaborationist authorities and made to wait in a building that may be a
police station. Some of them are Jews. All of them have something to hide—if
not from the Nazis, then from their fellow detainees and, inevitably, from
themselves. For in this claustrophobic antechamber to the death camps, everyone
is guilty. And perhaps none more so than those who can walk away alive.

In Incident at Vichy, Arthur Miller re-creates Dante's
hell inside the gaping pit that is our history and populates it with sinners
whose crimes are all the more fearful because they are so recognizable.

"One of the most important plays of our time . .
. Incident at Vichy returns the theater to greatness." —The New
York Times

Hamlet is Shakespeare's most popular, and most
puzzling, play. It follows the form of a "revenge tragedy," in which
the hero, Hamlet, seeks vengeance against his father's murderer, his uncle
Claudius, now the king of Denmark. Much of its fascination, however, lies in
its uncertainties.

The Metamorphosis (original German title:
"Die Verwandlung") is a short novel by Franz Kafka, first published
in 1915. It is often cited as one of the seminal works of fiction of the 20th
century and is widely studied in colleges and universities across the western
world. The story begins with a traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, waking to find
himself transformed into an insect.

Written around 1940, but not staged until 1956, this
autobiographical work by the Nobel Prize-winning playwright recreates his own
family experience, in an attempt to understand himself and those to whom he was
tied by fate and love.

"This story is about ruin and gold," says the old
man who narrates the story. And what is fascinating is the way Pizarro and his
small band of 16th century Spanish conquerors view the Inca civilisation
largely as a source of imperialist plunder. They are indifferent to its
communal values, turn its priceless treasures into liquid gold and see
Christianity as an instrument of power. Drawing his facts largely from
Prescott's History of Peru, Shaffer uses the past as a metaphor for mankind's
endless colonial instinct.

Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Eleven Tony
Awards, including Best Musical

Lin-Manuel Miranda's groundbreaking musical Hamilton is as
revolutionary as its subject, the poor kid from the Caribbean who fought the
British, defended the Constitution, and helped to found the United States.
Fusing hip-hop, pop, R&B, and the best traditions of theater, this
once-in-a-generation show broadens the sound of Broadway, reveals the
storytelling power of rap, and claims our country's origins for a diverse new
generation.

Hamilton: The Revolution gives readers an unprecedented view of both
revolutions, from the only two writers able to provide it. Miranda, along with
Jeremy McCarter, a cultural critic and theater artist who was involved in the
project from its earliest stages--"since before this was even a
show," according to Miranda--traces its development from an improbable
perfor­mance at the White House to its landmark opening night on Broadway six
years later. In addition, Miranda has written more than 200 funny, revealing
footnotes for his award-winning libretto, the full text of which is published
here.

Their account features photos by the renowned Frank Ockenfels and veteran
Broadway photographer, Joan Marcus; exclusive looks at notebooks and emails;
interviews with Questlove, Stephen Sond­heim, leading political commentators,
and more than 50 people involved with the production; and multiple appearances
by Presi­dent Obama himself. The book does more than tell the surprising story
of how a Broadway musical became a national phenomenon: It demonstrates that
America has always been renewed by the brash upstarts and brilliant outsiders,
the men and women who don't throw away their shot.

The Lady’s Not for Burning, a verse comedy in three acts
by Christopher Fry, was produced in 1948 and published in 1949. Known for its wry characterizations and
graceful language, this lighthearted play about
15th-century England brought Fry renown. Evoking spring, it was the first in
his series of four plays based on the seasons. (The others are Venus
Observed [1949; autumn], The Dark Is Light Enough [1954;
winter], and A Yard of Sun [1970; summer].)

Visit us today!

The Emmet O'Neal Library, in the heart of Mountain Brook, Alabama, is one of our community's gems. In today's fast-paced world, we offer an amazing variety of resources and programs for people of all ages. In our award-winning library, you can enjoy the newest books, study an art collection online, read of ancient civilizations, learn a new language, research the latest business trends, or travel to distant worlds of the imagination.